Aims and Scope
Portuguese Journal of Nephrology and Hypertension is the official organ of the Portuguese Society of Nephrology and is published quarterly. Supplementary issues on selected themes may also be published at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.
The Journal publishes articles on clinical or laboratory topics of relevance to nephrology, dialysis, transplantation and hypertension. Papers relating to basic immunology, physiology, genetics and epidemiology are accepted when kidney related.
Portuguese Journal of Nephrology and Hypertension publishes Editorials and in-depth Reviews, Original Articles, Short Communications, Technical Notes, Case Reports and Letters. Articles are accepted and published in English. Manuscripts submitted to the Portuguese Journal of Nephrology and Hypertension will be sent for peer review on the understanding that the author(s) have not published the material elsewhere.
The Journal is peer-reviewed and is indexed in Web of Science’s SciELO Citation Index and Directory of Open Access Journals, with free online access in our website: https://www.spnefro.pt/rpnh.
Portuguese Journal of Nephrology and Hypertension complies with the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals produced by the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors). Please see http://www.icmje.org.
Review and publication speed
All submissions will be subject to an immediate editorial screening process by the Editor-in-Chief after which they will normally be sent to three reviewers. The Editor-in-Chief will make every effort to reach a decision on all submitted papers within 8 weeks of receipt. Papers will normally be published in the next issue to go to press after their acceptance. Papers that do not meet the scientific standards of the journal may be declined by the Editor-in-Chief without further review.
Content types
The Portuguese Journal of Nephrology and Hypertension publishes: 1) Editorials; 2) Review Articles; 3) Original Articles; 4) Case Reports; 5) Letters to the Editor; 6) Nephropathology Quiz; 7) Top article.
Editorials
Editorials are usually invited, but authors may propose a paper for the Editor-in-Chief’s consideration. They may have up to 2000 words and a maximum of 2 tables or figures. A maximum of 5 references is generally recommended.
Review Articles
Review articles should provide novel insights and comprehensive analyses of topics on Nephrology, and interpretation of the published literature. They are usually commissioned by the Editors. However, unsolicited reviews will be considered. These articles may have up to 5000 words and an abstract of up to 300 words. The use of 3 tables or figures is acceptable. A maximum of 70 references is generally recommended.
Original Articles
An original article must focus on relevant clinical investigation or basic research, and is limited to 4000 words including an abstract with up to 300 words. The order of the text should be as follows: Introduction, Subjects and Methods (any statistical method must be detailed in this section), Results and Discussion. A maximum of 50 references is generally recommended.
Case Reports
Original and succinct description structured in Introduction, Case Report and Discussion. They should not exceed 2500 words (including an abstract up to 300 words) and should not include more than 4 tables or figures. A maximum of 30 references is generally recommended.
Letters to the Editor
Letters must contain information related to an article published in the Journal or may concern a topic of current interest in Nephrology. Letters (maximum of 3 authors) are limited to 500 words and 1 table or figure. A maximum of 5 references is generally recommended.
Nephropathology Quiz
A case report to educate clinicians on the renal pathology. This section includes a concise clinical history, images of histology and discussion. These articles are usually invited and are limited to 2000 words, 8 figures and 20 references.
Top article
These articles, by invitation of the Editors, must contain a commentary concerning an international paper published in the last 3 months. These manuscripts are limited to 1500 words and 20 references.
Manuscript Submission
Once you have prepared your manuscript according to the Instructions below, submitted you manuscript online through: http://rpnh.spnefro.pt. Please pay particular attention to the Disclosures section.
Manuscript Preparation
Manuscripts must be typed in English and double-spaced with page numbers.
The title page must include:
manuscript title
all authors’ full names, highest academic degrees, affiliations and e-mail address
name, affiliation, address and e-mail address of the corresponding author
all authors must be identified with their ORCID number
word count for the abstract
word count for the text, excluding references, figures, and tables
Do not forget to download the Authorship Responsibility Statement/Authorization for Publication and Conflict of Interest. The article can only be submitted with these two documents.
Required documents in submission
Manuscript Order
Ensure that the manuscript includes all of the following items:
Abstract
Key-words
Introduction
Materials and Methods
Results
Discussion
Disclosures
Acknowledgments
References
Tables (all cited) with appropriate descriptive titles
Figures and legends (all cited)
Abstract:
Not more than 300 words. Abbreviations should not be used.
Key-Words:
Not more than 6, in alphabetical order, and the terms used (when possible) should be from the Medical Subject Headings list of the Index Medicus.
Disclosures:
- Conflict of interests: Each manuscript must include a conflict of interest statement before the References section. The disclosure statement will describe the sources of any support for the work in the form of grants, consulting fees or honoraria from industry, equipment, provision of drugs, travel related with the study or any combination thereof. Any relevant financial activities outside the submitted paper but considered stakeholders in the field must be detailed. The corresponding author should provide a Conflict of Interest Declaration describing the possible financial interests of all the authors. The absence of any interest must also be declared.
- Funding: All sources of funding should be declared. Authors should declare the role of study sponsors, if any, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; and in the decision to submit the manuscript for publication. If the study sponsors had no such involvement, the authors should so state.
- Consent for publication: Authors must declare their consent for publication and must include the statement: “the results presented in this paper have not been published previously, in whole or in part, except in abstract form”.
- Informed Consent and Ethics: Identifying details of patients should not be published in descriptions unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the patient gives written informed consent for publication. Patients shown in photographs should have their identity obscured or the picture must be accompanied by written permission to use the photograph.
When reporting experiments on human subjects, it is mandatory to indicate whether the procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 (revised in 2015) and, in the case of renal transplant, the Declaration of Istanbul.
When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the institutional and national guide for the care and use of laboratory animals was followed.
- Author Contribution: With regard to authorship credit, PJNH has adopted the criteria recommended by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) in the current update of the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: ”Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; AND 2) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND 3) final approval of the version to be published.” Those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments. Please specify the contribution of each author to the paper, e.g. study concept or design, data collection, data analysis or interpretation, writing the paper, others, who have contributed in other ways should be listed as contributors.
- Acknowledgements: All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship as defined above should be listed in an acknowledgements section.
References:
Authors are responsible for bibliographic accuracy. All the references, including those with only electronic sources, should be cited according to the “Vancouver Citation Style” which can be consulted on the Internet at: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/administration-and-support-services/library/public/vancouver.pdf
References must be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are cited in the text. Each reference should give the name and initials of all authors unless they are more than six, when only the first three should be given followed by et al. Authors’ names should be followed by the title of the article, journal abbreviations according to the style used in Index Medicus, the year of publication, the volume number and the first and last page numbers. For papers in the course of publication, “in press” replaces the date; the journal name must be given in the references. Manuscripts that are unpublished, in preparation, or submitted, and personal communications should not be cited in the reference list but may appear parenthetically in the text. References to books should contain the author(s) name(s) and initials, the title of the book, followed by place of publication, publisher, year, and relevant pages. Websites must be referenced by the following order: title, URL and access date.
Examples:
1. Journals:
Hogan J, Mohan P, Appel GB. Diagnostic tests and treatment options in glomerular disease: 2014 update. Am J Kidney Dis 2014;63(4):656-666
2. Books:
Morris Peter, Knechtle Stuart. Kidney Transplantation - Principles and Practice. 7th Edition. Saunders, 2014:72
3. Website:
Substitutive Renal Therapy of Chronic Renal Disease in Portugal.
Available at https://www.spnefro.pt/tratamento_da_doenca_renal_terminal/2013
Accessed October 6, 2013.
4. Published Meeting Abstract:
Jorge Silva, Jorge Antunes, Telmo Carvalho, Pedro Ponce. Efficacy of preventing hemodialysis catheter infections with citrate lock (Encontro Renal abstract SE001). Port J Nephrol Hypert 2011; 25(1):56
Tables: Tables should supplement, not duplicate, the information in the main text. References to tables should be made in order of appearance in the text and should be in Roman numerals in brackets, e.g. (Table II). Each table should be typed on a separate sheet and have a brief heading describing its contents.
Figures: All illustrations (transparencies, photographs, diagrams, graphs, etc.) should be labelled consecutively in Arabic numerals (Fig. 1, 2...), according to their relative positions in the text. If a figure has been published before, the original source must be acknowledged and written permission from the copyright holder must be submitted with the material.